This disclosure relates to a gas turbine engine, and more particularly to a fan blade airfoil that may be incorporated into a gas turbine engine.
Gas turbine engines typically include a compressor section, a combustor section and a turbine section. During operation, air is pressurized in the compressor section and is mixed with fuel and burned in the combustor section to generate hot combustion gases. The hot combustion gases are communicated through the turbine section, which extracts energy from the hot combustion gases to power the compressor section and other gas turbine engine loads.
One type of gas turbine engine incorporates a fan section driven by low pressure turbine to provide a high bypass ratio in which a significant amount of thrust is provided by the fan section through a bypass flow path. Some gas turbine engines may also use a fan drive gear system to reduce the speed of the fan section. As a result, significantly larger fan blades may be used in the fan section.
A leading edge of each fan blade is designed to align with the flow angle of air entering the bypass flow path at the fan blade's design point to minimize performance loss in the fan section. The incidence angle between the flow and the leading edge at the design point is typically optimized to provide an adequate stall margin as well as flow capacity.